Centurion Lemans Help

I have been looking for a vintage road bike to supplement my new Fisher/Trek cyclocross bike, as well as to replace my '74 Raleigh Super Course I sold a few years back (and I do regret that decision!). I ran across this bike on craig's list, and was hoping you could give me your opinion:

At $90 it looks like it is probably worth the asking price, but I don't know much about the 80's Japanese bikes. I assume this bike is of mid-80s vintage, maybe '84 to '87? Tange 2 is a decent grade butted frame, right? And do you think it would give a similar ride to my old Super Course?

Thanks for the comments. I just talked to the seller, and he can't show me the bike until tomorrow morning. I told him I want it and will call him first thing tomorrow. Hopefully it will still be there!

Well, I didn't get the bike I called the seller, who told me he was at work and couldn't do anything about selling it until 10:00am the next morning. When I called him back at 9:30am, he told me it was sold. I even told him I would take the bike, and not to sell to anyone else, but clearly that wasn't enough.

I saw another bike later in the weekend that I also wanted, a late 80's Specialized Sirrus for $185. I saw this one two hours after the ad was first posted, and when I called a half hour later it had already been sold. So a lesson learned over the last few days; if you see a good deal on a nice 80s road bike in this market, if you have to research the bike at all it will be gone! Time to study this forum in much more detial than I have, and to make it a habit to check Craig's list every couple of hours, particularly on the weekend!

BTW, does anyone have tips on how to quickly filter throught the tons of junk on Craig's list bicycle area? There is a huge amount of listings to scroll through to get to the good stuff on the DC list.

So a lesson learned over the last few days; if you see a good deal on a nice 80s road bike in this market, if you have to research the bike at all it will be gone! Time to study this forum in much more detial than I have, and to make it a habit to check Craig's list every couple of hours, particularly on the weekend!

Exactamundo! and bingo!! The above statement has been written about 1000 times. If I am selling a bike and a prospective buyer tells me he wants it and will buy it that does not mean either of those things are true. I know it sucks but if you sell enough of anything on CL those are just the facts.

I tell the buyer if he wants it bad enough paypal me. That does happen once in awhile and weeds out the time wasters.

As a seller I don't expect any buyer to actually buy the bike until they are handing me the cash. Otherwise I will take them first come first served. As a buyer you need to hit the good deals immediately or you will miss out.

Why "derailer" is the correct way to spell the gear-change mechanism: sheldonbrown.com/derailer.html

The frustrating thing about this sellor was that he told me he was working and could't be bothered about the bike until the next day, and that he would hold it for me. Otherwise if he had told me first come first served, I would have hopped on the metro immediately. Oh well. Live and learn.

The frustrating thing about this sellor was that he told me he was working and could't be bothered about the bike until the next day, and that he would hold it for me. Otherwise if he had told me first come first served, I would have hopped on the metro immediately. Oh well. Live and learn.

I guess I will have to just not take no for an answer in the future!

I think the whole "can you pick this up the day after I posted the ad" thing was just the seller's way of queuing up buyers in case the first person flaked out. Understandable, but it still feels bad. That happened to me with this dusty-not-rusty '85 Tempo:

As for filtering craigslist results, I've found that clicking the "by owner" button and listing a price range that's something like $25 to $250 helps. This gets rid of the bike shops that seem to spam their entire overpriced inventory on CL every few days. The price range helps weed out some of the bottom-barrel kid's bikes, the stolen bike notifications, and the $0 or $1 CL dreamers (either they're the "make me an offer" types that expect to be showered in money, or they list the real price in the body of the ad, and that dollar amount is very, very high).

As a buyer you need to hit the good deals immediately or you will miss out.

Most markets have at least a couple flippers working them and good, inexpensive bikes don't tend to last more than an hour or two. As you go up the price scale, a decent deal may last a bit longer. At least is smaller markets like mine, the quick turnover profits are most attractive at the low end as the higher priced bikes take longer to sell.